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When the opportunity came knocking on my proverbial door to create a delicious, but super easy recipe, for Tyson® Grilled & Ready Chicken Breast Strips and Wish-Bone® Regular Italian dressing I jumped at the opportunity. You know me; I’m all about great protein, simple steps and amazing flavors. That’s exactly what I have in store for you today with this Italian Chicken Panzanella Salad! Whether you’re getting ready for the Big Game, lunches for the week or a quick week night meal, I got you covered with this recipe!

I cannot even begin to tell you how ridiculously easy AND delicious this recipe is! What’s even more awesomer (go with it folks) is that you can add to this dish whatever you want. If you were a fan of olives or capers – put ’em in! Red onions or shallots would be epic in this dish too! But for me, I wanted to keep it simple, colorful and let the true stars of the dish shine through – the Tyson® Grilled & Ready Chicken Breast Strips and Wish-Bone® Regular Italian dressing.

This dish has to be one of the most colorful and prettiest dishes I’ve had in quite a while. This recipe turns into truly a One-Bowl Wonder that will be the star of any table setting! But before I get ahead of myself let’s dish about these products. I popped into my local Walmart to pick up my fresh cheese and veggies, some basil, add-ins for the salad, a loaf of crusty Italian bread and was on my way to grab some chicken and dressing. What’s great about this store is that I don’t have to memorize where items are located as each aisle is clearly marked on both ends. Into my buggy went a bag of the chicken breast strips and some Italian dressing. Literally I was in and out of this store in 20 minutes. Commuting up to 3 hours a day for work and working TKW full time in the evening stopping at the store was unheard of for me as I simply didn’t have the time. However now that I can shop at my local Walmart where it has everything, I’m in and out in minutes. SCORE!

Speaking of score.. Serve this up for the Big Game and you’ll surely be the MVP! Want to know what else is a huge score? COUPONS!!! Check out each packaging below for in-store coupons!

The hardest part of this dish was opening up the containers.. and waiting to eat it. The chicken is already prepared and ready to go. It goes from the freezer to a skillet to your belly in just minutes. The bread toasts up in the oven in what, 10 minutes. While those are both baking/cooking away all you have to do is chop up your cheese, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers and open up the dressing.

Seriously, it’s THAT easy! This is definitely something you’ll want to get the kids in on and help out with!

For me I went with the essentials to what I would deem an ‘Italian’ salad – fresh mozzarella, fresh basil – lots of basil, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers and chicken. Yeah I could have gone with olives but I hate olives *shudder*. They are just too…um, ‘olive-y’ for me. LOL I eat a lot by colors so if I ate olives I would add in the big fat black olives as they would give the dish a killer color contrast. However I’ll leave it up to you olive-lovin’-community out there to tell me if black olives would go or not.

Once the chicken was prepared to the package’s instructions (literally they went from skillet to this board in like 3 minutes), I got to chopping. What’s great about this chicken is that it’s already grilled for you thus it’s simple and convenient to make! Talk about easy peasy, huh?!

When serving this you really have two options (you’ll see it in the recipe):

You can make it ahead of time – partially. I’ll explain in a second. OR;

You can make and serve immediately.

K, so let me ‘splain about the partially. Panzanella salad is a bread salad where the bread is used to soak up the dressing in the salad. It’s not a crouton as it’s not hard as a rock. No, not like that. Instead the bread is baked until the exterior is crisp but the middle is soft. When you put that crispy bread into a salad then add in a wet dressing the bread starts to soak up the dressing. When you eat it immediately you get the flavors in the bread but that little bite of the crispy exterior.

Now if you’re like me you make that squinched-up-yucky-face at the thought of eating soggy bread. So that’s why I say partially. You can assemble most of the ingredients ahead of time and store it in the fridge. When you’re ready to serve it, you then add in the crispy bread and the rest of the ingredients.

When you go to assemble just place your ingredients in a large bowl and pour the robust, flavor-packed dressing over top. Give it a gently stir coat all sides and server. There’s no need to other spices as the dressing is amazing as-is! It’s gives that bite needed to take your dish from yum to WOW!

So if you really want to blow away your family with a killer meal or serve up one amazing dish for the Big Game, you need to make this dish!

Now if you’ll excuse me I need to wander back out to the kitchen as all this typing as got my tummy grumbling again for some more of this! What’s awesome about it is that it’s packed with quality ingredients, great protein and amazing flavors so I don’t have to feel guilty!

Bake for 10 minutes or until the bread is slightly crisp, turning once. They should not be hard like croutons.

While the bread is baking, prepare the chicken by preheating a large skillet over medium heat.

When the pan is heated up place half of the chicken breast strips into the pan. Do not crowd the chicken in the pan. Follow the package instructions to prepare the chicken.

When the chicken is done, remove from the skillet, and cut into 1/2” pieces.

Once the bread is done, remove the pan from the oven and set aside.

To prep ahead of time add the chicken, tomatoes, mozzarella, artichoke hearts and red peppers to a bowl.

Drizzle with half of the Wishbone Regular Italian Dressing gently mixing to coat.

Cover and place in the fridge.

When ready to serve transfer the chicken mixture to a large bowl, add in the crusty bread cubes, the rest of the dressing and torn basil leaves.

Gently stir to combine and serve.

If serving immediately, place the chicken mixture, torn basil, bread and dressing in a large bowl; gently toss to combine.

Store any leftovers in the fridge.

Notes

If storing the leftovers with bread in it, the bread will get soggy. Instead when you're ready to serve only put enough bread in for that serving. You can always add more crispy bread if you have leftovers!